Word.ws English Dictionary

modal verbs

modal verbs is the plural of modal verb.

Meaning of modal verb

Noun

modal verb (plural modal verbs)

  1. A verb whose primary function is to express grammatical mood.
    • Although at first glance combinations of two modal verbs might seem to be cases of grammatical distortion, their use is scientifically recognised.2019, Irina S. Lebedeva, Svetlana N. Orlova, “Semantics and pragmatics of the double modal ‘might could’”, in Training, Language and Culture, volume 3, number 2, →DOI
    Synonyms:
    modal, modal auxiliary, modal auxiliary verb

Questions about modal verbs

What is modal verbs the plural of?
Modal verbs is the plural of modal verb.

Words near modal verbs in the dictionary

  1. modal scales
  2. modal shift
  3. modal shifts
  4. modal stacking
  5. modal verb
  6. modal verbs
  7. modalise
  8. modalised
  9. modalises
  10. modalising
  11. modalism

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: modal verbs (page history and authors); modal verb (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “modal verbs.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/modal_verbs. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.